National Mission on Cultural Mapping

National Mission on Cultural Mapping
Name	National Mission on Cultural Mapping
Established	2017
Jurisdiction	Ministry of Culture (India)
Headquarters	New Delhi
Minister	Minister of Culture (India)
Parent agency	Ministry of Culture (India)

Contents

National Mission on Cultural Mapping is a central initiative launched to document and map the cultural resources of India. It aims to create a comprehensive digital repository linking tangible and intangible heritage across states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu with institutions like the Archaeological Survey of India, National School of Drama, Sangeet Natak Akademi and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. The project interfaces with programs including the Digital India initiative and partners like UNESCO and the National Informatics Centre.

Overview

The mission was conceived under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture (India) and articulated during policy discussions alongside entities such as the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Pragati Maidan consultative forums, and reports influenced by the National Cultural Policy. It sought to interlink records from archival repositories such as the National Archives of India, gallery holdings like the National Museum, New Delhi, craft registries including the All India Handicrafts Board, and performing-arts rosters maintained by the Sangeet Natak Akademi. Major metropolitan nodes involved included Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad while heritage corridors such as the Golden Triangle (India), Buddhist Circuit, and Kashi precincts were primary geographies for initial fieldwork.

Primary objectives included cataloguing practitioners registered with the Sangeet Natak Akademi, artisans recorded by the Office of the Development Commissioner for Handicrafts, and monuments overseen by the Archaeological Survey of India. The mission aimed to map cultural ecosystems connecting festivals like Kumbh Mela, Durga Puja, Diwali, and Onam with intangible traditions such as Kathakali, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi and Garba. Strategic goals referenced cultural indicators used by UNESCO World Heritage Centre, labour data from the Ministry of Labour and Employment (India), and GIS frameworks inspired by projects like the National Remote Sensing Centre and Survey of India mapping standards.

Implementation employed partnerships with academic institutions such as Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University and Tata Institute of Social Sciences alongside technology collaborators including the National Informatics Centre, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, and private firms in Bengaluru and Gurgaon. Methodologies combined ethnographic fieldwork modeled on work by the Anthropological Survey of India, archival digitization techniques used by the National Archives of India, and geospatial processes practiced at the Indian Space Research Organisation. Training programs used curricula from the Indian Council of Historical Research and tools informed by the Archaeological Survey of India’s conservation protocols.

Data sources incorporated registries maintained by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, lists from the National School of Drama, documentation from the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, and inventories from state cultural departments of Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The database architecture followed models developed by the National Informatics Centre and standards referenced the Museum of Art and Photography digitization best practices, metadata schemas promoted by the International Council of Museums and the UNESCO Memory of the World guidelines. Field data included oral histories gathered in villages such as those in the Sunderbans and Chotanagpur Plateau and material culture records from sites like Hampi, Ellora Caves, Ajanta Caves and Khajuraho Temples.

Governance structures engaged agencies including the Ministry of Culture (India), advisory boards drawing experts from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, representatives from state departments of culture like Tamil Nadu Department of Art and Culture and stakeholders such as the All India Federation of Master Printers, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, and non-governmental organizations like the INTACH and Dastkari Haat Samiti. Community stakeholders included traditional guilds documented by the All India Handloom Board, village panchayats in districts like Varanasi district and urban cultural trusts operating in locales such as Pune and Lucknow.

Reported outcomes included consolidated registries of practitioners from the Sangeet Natak Akademi lists, geo-tagged cultural assets across Himachal Pradesh and Assam, and enhanced inventories for heritage sites like Meenakshi Amman Temple and Charminar. The mission supported projects tied to the Smart Cities Mission cultural strategies in Ahmedabad and Varanasi and informed conservation priorities for the Archaeological Survey of India and funding decisions by bodies like the Ministry of Culture (India). Academic outputs referenced by institutions such as the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research showcased data-driven research linking festival economies of Puri and Madurai with artisan livelihoods catalogued under schemes of the Ministry of Textiles.

Critiques emerged from scholars associated with Jawaharlal Nehru University, activists from People’s Archive of Rural India, and heritage advocates in INTACH who pointed to gaps in coverage in tribal regions like the Northeast India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, inconsistencies reported by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, and interoperability issues flagged by the National Informatics Centre. Operational challenges included under-documentation in districts such as Dhanbad and Sambalpur, disputes over copyright with publishing houses in Kolkata and Delhi, and concerns about community consent raised by representatives from the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India and researchers linked to the Anthropological Survey of India.

Category:Cultural heritage of India